Reporter John Eckhouse was one of the first people to discover the practice of sending euthanized pets to the rendering plants.

He quoted an employee of Sacramento Rendering as saying, "Thousands and thousands of pounds of dogs and cats are picked up and brought here every day."

When a vet tells a grieving owner that they'll "take care" of their dead loved one, they usually mean sending it off with the disposal company for rendering. This is all perfectly legal. Many veterinarians and especially shelters don't have the money to bury or cremate animals.

Although many in the pet food industry deny that they use euthanized animals, proof that the practice goes on continues to surface.

Over a few years in the 1990’s, veterinarians began reporting to the FDA/CVM that the drug they used for anesthetizing, and euthanizing, dogs—sodium pentobarbital—seemed to be losing its effectiveness.

This prompted the CVM to explore the most likely cause: animals were becoming immune to the drug because they had been eating food with trace amounts of sodium pentobarbital for years. The likely source of the drug in their food? Euthanized animals.

In 1998, the CVM went about testing dry dogs foods containing the ingredients meat and bone meal, animal digest, animal fat and beef and bone meal. They found the drug in 31 of 37 foods tested.

Two years later, they conducted a study to find the levels of the drug in parts per billion for each food. Some examples were:

• 32 ppb: Old Roy—Puppy Formula, chicken and beef
• 25.1 ppb: Heinz—Kibbles ‘n Bits Beefy Bits
• 16.4 ppb: Super G—Chunk Style Dog Food
• 15 ppb: Weis—Total High Energy Chicken and Rice
• 11.6 ppb: Pet Gold—Master Diet Puppy Formulation
• 10 ppb: Old Roy—Puppy Formula, beef flavor

Note that these products may be free of this drug now, as these are the findings in 2000.